Review: Final Cut Pro X 10.4 First Look - Larry Jordan

Larry Jordan had the chance to work with the pre-release versions of Final Cut Pro X (10.4), Compressor (4.4) and Motion (5.4) that have recently been made available. He explains what’s new, what’s better, what hasn’t changed and more, to help you decide is it’s worth upgrading.

Here's a summary of Larry Jordan's findings:

In a sentence, Apple has positioned Final Cut Pro X for the future. Yes, there are exciting new features, but the really hard work on the part of Apple’s developers was in upgrading the foundation of the application:

HDR is now implemented across all three apps, via Rec. 2020 PQ and Rec. 2020 HLG

HDR media can now be viewed on an external HDR monitor

HEVC and HEIF are now a fully-supported codecs (iOS 11 video is now supported)

8K video and projects are fully supported

Each of these required, I suspect, extensive programming changes throughout the application. If you are not into HDR, or VR or HEVC, you can look at these core changes and say: “Is that all there is?” However, that’s the wrong perspective.

What Apple has done is make sure that, as you and your projects evolve into these new media formats, FCP X will be ready and waiting for you.

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